Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.
Frederick Locker-Lampson 1821–95The Skeleton in the Cupboard
T
Come ready-made, we can’t bespeak one;
Their sides are many, too, and all
(Except ourselves) have got a weak one.
Some sanguine people love for life,
Some love their hobby till it flings them.
How many love a pretty wife
For love of the éclat she brings them!
I ’ve thrown off this disjointed chatter,
But more because I ’m disinclin’d
To enter on a painful matter:
Once I was bashful; I ’ll allow
I ’ve blush’d for words untimely spoken;
I still am rather shy, and now…
And now the ice is fairly broken.
Which may n’t be quite your charming spouse’s;
We all lock up a skeleton
In some grim chamber of our houses;
Familiars, who exhaust their days
And nights in probing where our smart is,
And who, excepting spiteful ways,
Are “silent, unassuming parties.”
Rarely we let it cross our portals;
It is a most exacting guest:
Now, are we not afflicted mortals?
Your neighbor Gay, that jovial wight,
As Dives rich, and brave as Hector,—
Poor Gay steals twenty times a night,
On shaking knees, to see his spectre.
So hoarding is his ruling passion:
Some gloomy souls anticipate
A waistcoat straiter than the fashion!
She childless pines, that lonely wife,
And secret tears are bitter shedding;
Hector may tremble all his life,
And die,—but not of that he ’s dreading.
The beldams dance, the caldron bubbles;
They shriek, they stir it for our sins,
And we must drain it for our troubles.
We toil, we groan; the cry for love
Mounts up from this poor seething city,
And yet I know we have above
A F
Where sunbeams play, where shadows darken,
One inmate of our dwelling keeps
Its ghastly carnival; but hearken!
How dry the rattle of the bones!
That sound was not to make you start meant:
Stand by! Your humble servant owns
The Tenant of this Dark Apartment.